What Is the Future of Data Sharing?

Each day billions of pieces of data are shared between consumers and business. The World Economic Forum has even researched the potential to define data as a new asset class. For marketers and brand builders, there is an ever growing interest in understanding how consumers will share data their data and how a company can better use that data to build relationships with their customers.

In 2015, the Center on Global Brand Leadership, in conjunction with the Aimia Institute, sought to examine how consumers think about data sharing, with an aim to uncover the deeper nuances of this behavior. Over 8,000 people in five countries – US, Canada, UK, France, and India – were surveyed about their attitudes and behaviors towards data sharing across six different industries. The goal of the research was to go beyond generalized attitudes and examine:

How consumers think about specific types of personal data (e.g. sharing their name vs. their purchase history)

How they share data with different industries (e.g. retail vs. telecommunications companies)

How a trusted relationship with a brand might impact a person's decision to share data